Sturgeon release links past and future on Kalamazoo River

Thursday

Sep 4, 2014 at 7:00 AM

By Jim.Hayden@hollandsentinel.com(616) 546-4274

Kregg Smith held the future in his hands — and the future was kind of spiky and wet.Smith, a fisheries biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, was feeding young lake sturgeon last week at a hatchery along the shores of the Kalamazoo River in New Richmond in preparation for the release of the fish on Saturday, Sept. 6.“Our intent is to stabilize the population,” Smith said. “We hope some day they make a comeback.”The Sturgeon Release Celebration is 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at New Richmond County Park, 5740 Old Allegan Road in Manlius Township. The fish will be released at noon into the Kalamazoo River as part of music, food and a historic bridge celebration.Sturgeon once numbered in the thousands, but now just 112 make the Kalamazoo River their home. The fish, which trace their roots back to the age of the dinosaurs, have dwindled in numbers since the early 1900s as a result of habitat loss, overfishing, the construction of dams and pollution.The females take 20 years to mature and spawn once every four years, according to Michigan Sea Grant. The fish return from Lake Michigan to the river of their birth to spawn.Smith and other DNR workers collected the eggs and larvae from the Allegan Dam area of the river in May and brought them to the hatchery — an 8-by-24-foot trailer in New Richmond — where Kalamazoo River water is pumped into tanks so the endangered fish will retain their unique genetic traits and return to the river to spawn.Some of the fish are fitted with transmitters that allow biologists to track them for about a month. All have a microchip implanted in them that can be recovered when the fish is found.The New Richmond facility is the only one in the state that takes fish from the river and raises them in their native water, Smith said. Other hatcheries take eggs from other rivers and raise them in non-native water to reintroduce the fish to the area.The program is sponsored by the Kalamazoo River chapter of Sturgeon for Tomorrow, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish band of Potawatomi Indians and the DNR.“We have a connection to the past, particularly when some of the past is still here,” said Ron Clark of Sturgeon for Tomorrow. “These sturgeon are about to come back from almost extinction. It’s a real lesson for kids, adults or anyone.”Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish representatives will open and close the event with a drum ceremony, Clark said.This year, the DNR plans to release 35 sturgeon into the river, down from the 52 released last year. None were released in 2012, but 116 were put into the river by children at the first public release from the New Richmond hatchery in 2011.The young fish are about 10 inches long when released into the wild, a size advantage that will help them survive in the wild. A mature fish can be more than 5-feet long.The Saturday release is part of a day-long series of events that include a tour of the hatchery and exhibits of other fish such as small mouth bass so people can compare more modern fish with the ancient sturgeon.Other attractions include free cider and doughnuts from Crane’s Pie Pantry Restaurant of Fennville, live Dixieland music and a turning of the 1879 swing bridge that spans the Kalamazoo River.The 422-foot span, now a pedestrian crossing, is one of the oldest swing bridges in the nation. The Chicago & Michigan Lake Shore Railroad came through in the 1870s. The bridge was the only crossing of the Kalamazoo River west of Plainwell, turning New Richmond into a busy hub into the early 1900s. The bustling town is now a sleepy hamlet, though trains still pass through several times a day on another bridge.— Follow Jim Hayden on Twitter@SentinelJim.